Rare orange lobsters delivered in New England restaurant shipment

Mansfield
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A Massachusetts restaurant found six rare orange lobsters in a recent shipment. At first, workers thought they had arrived already cooked and someone had been playing a joke on them.

According to Boston.com, five of the six orange lobsters showed up in a 100-pound shipment delivered to the Fresh Catch Seafood and Deli in Mansfield, Mass; the sixth was found at its North Attleboro location.

“When he pulled them out, he said, ‘Oh my God, boss, look, they put the cooked lobsters in with the live lobsters,’” said Bill Sarro, owner of Fresh Catch, recalled.

However, it was soon clear the carrot-colored lobsters were very much alive.

Recently, Digital Journal reported on a rare blue lobster caught off the Canadian coast; finding one of these lobsters are odds of one in two million. Orange lobsters, like the six received at Fresh Catch, are even rarer. According to several media reports, finding one of these brightly colored lobsters is one in 10 million.

“One in 10 million? It doesn’t get much better than that,” Sarro said. “It has been unbelievable.”

Sarro plans to keep the lobsters in one of the restaurant's tanks. According to CBS News, he hopes to put one in each of his restaurants.

“Customers come in and they all ask about them, so I bring them over to the back and let them take a look,” he said. “They’re not for sale, though. We’re going to keep them here in the tank and let people come and see them to enjoy the naturalness of them.”

WPRI reports the University of Maine's Lobster Institute notes the oddity in color is attributed to a genetic deformity.

Other types of oddly colored lobsters, aside from blue and orange, are yellow and calico, odds of each 1 in 30 million. The rarest lobsters, according to the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, are split color (half-orange/half brown) and albino. A split lobster is one in 50 million, and an albino one is one in 100 million, said the Institute.

This was the first time in 30 years he had ever seen an orange one, Sarro said.

All of these lobsters were reportedly caught off the Magdalen Islands in Maine.